Telegram
by temporex
Summary: COMPLETE » When the telegram came, Susan Pevensie suddenly lost everything she never knew she had. Oneshot.


**Title: **Telegram  
**Author:** Temporex  
**Rating: **PG (I think - I've never been any good with ratings)  
**Pairing:** None  
**Character(s)**: Susan Pevensie  
**Length: **931 words, one-shot  
**Warnings:** Implied character death, spoilers for _The Last Battle_.  
**Disclaimer: **The Pevensies will never actually belong to me. Shame, eh?  
**Summary:** When the telegram came, Susan Pevensie suddenly lost everything she never knew she had.  
**Author's Note: **Incomprehensible nonsense, that ignores most of the rules of grammar. It doesn't help that I don't like Susan.

**TELEGRAM**

When the telegram came. One telegram, one day. One telegram that came. One short, short telegram on one forever day. One stupid little telegram. One telegram, that had no right to make the hours last centuries. No right to make her be someone else in front of them. No right, no rights for that one short telegram on that one forever day.

When the telegram came, she stopped. _Everything stopped_. Cars stopped, dogs stopped, children stopped and trees stopped. Breathing stopped, but an absence of everything didn't help. Stopping didn't help. Stopping never helped. Stopping drinking didn't help, because next week so-and-so from down the street would have a party, and you'd just have to go, and you'd drink the punch first but then the wine and then more wine and in the morning you'd have a hangover. Stopping couldn't help. But that didn't matter, because she couldn't move. Couldn't move her feet, couldn't move her hand. Couldn't. Couldn't stop. Couldn't stop crying.

When the telegram came, she cried. She didn't want to cry, didn't mean to cry, but how do you stop crying? How can you stop it when a tear rolls down your cheek, and you can't stop it, but you can't start your hand to reach and brush it away. The world stops moving apart from your tears. You couldn't solve that. You couldn't stop your friend pulling the telegram – how did it become so crinkled? – from your grip. Couldn't stop it. Couldn't stop them looking at you in sympathy. Couldn't stop them catching you when you fell.

When the telegram came, she fell. She didn't know why, or how. She never fell, because she was she and she was perfect and elegant and poised with a straight, straight back and dark, dark hair. She never fell, not even when her heels were so so high that they were deathtraps. At least, that's what her brothers and her sister had called them when they'd visited. But she fell, but not from the deathtraps, and there were no brothers or sister to catch her and make her look dignified. And once she started falling, she couldn't stop.

When the telegram came, except later, after falling and crying and a strong brandy or was it two or ten or more, and after cooing and sympathy and strong arms and hands guiding to her a bedroom and hushed voices in the corridor. _After_ the telegram came, then she sat and she thought and thought. And she couldn't stop thinking, even though she'd stopped thinking years ago, when she stopped being smart and clever and started just being right all the time. She wasn't right this time, though.

When the telegram came – after the telegram came – when did the telegram come? The forever day was on and on and on, and no stopping, so she was thinking and crying and falling all over again. Or was she falling and crying, because she didn't think so anymore. No, she was thinking, thinking and thinking about her sister's hair, so much lighter, and her laugh and her face and everything about her. And her brothers, all noble and just and magnificent and amazing and kingly in every way. But she couldn't see their faces, and where had they gone? Why did they have to leave her, why now, why here, in this cold place with brandy and whispers outside doors, whispers that never stopped.

When the telegram came, she realized. Realized that maybe, just maybe she'd been wrong. But she couldn't be wrong, because she was always right – that was who she was. She wasn't smart, but she knew everything anyway, because she'd never got into university and she didn't want to but that didn't mean that she didn't know what disestablishmentarianism meant. But they were all smart and beautiful and amazing and they probably didn't know what it meant – except maybe her little brother did, because he liked books and read them – but they were smarter than her.

When the telegram came, she believed. She didn't know that she believed, but she did, but she knew that it was wrong because if she believed then she was wrong because not believing was right. So if she was wrong and what was wrong was right what did that make her? Because she was always right, but when wrong things are right everything gets confused and she can't understand that. And she can't understand why she sees a lion in her head, except she can because she almost believes now, even though it's wrong but right.

When the telegram came, she knew. Knew that she was alone now, even though she'd been alone because she'd missed them. And that she was wrong for not believing and she would never get them back and never go back and never not be alone again, and he couldn't stop that because it was all her fault and she couldn't fix it. And she missed them already, even though she never spoke to her little sister with her laugh and her need to save everything, or that she'd never watched her older brother be regal and knowing and brave and he'd never protect her again, even though he'd not protected her in forever because she didn't want him to. And her younger brother, who'd never be quiet and watching and stopping them doing stupid things the getting hurt for that like he always used to.

When the telegram came, Susan's world fell around about her ears and it took her heart and her head and her life with it.


End file.
